I love holidays. Holiday themed desserts are awesome and they totally give me an excuse to bake. You can find some awesome inspiration for your next baking project (or five, but who does that? Not me, so not me…)

But I mean it was so worth it.

So yes, this morning I got up bright and early determined to make something Irish themed. Of course, living in Ireland, the food is generally Irish and things like Irish stew and all that lot are things that you can get at any local Irish pub.

Although not this one I’m afraid.

I love pub food, but it can set you back a bit caloriewise.

If you decide to go for sausages, baked beans and chips, you could be looking at 800 calories. More than recommended for a single meal and 3/4 of your daily intake on a 1200 calories diet or half for a 1600 calorie diet. So yeah, pub food was out of the budget for today.

Many St. Patrick themed foods I found were some version of Shamrock shakes (to be honest, I live in Ireland and I’ve never heard of a Shamrock Shake before), mint brownies, sausages, Irish stew and soda bread.

So let’s think. No green food colouring, no mint, no love for mint flavoured desserts and no desire to make an Irish stew at 7am. Right what does that leave?

Soda bread? I like soda bread, but no one else in my family likes soda bread so making a full loaf was out as well.

Chocolate Guinness cake? Now we’re onto something!

The original recipe was Dark Chocolate Guinness Cake from Womanista, which I stumbled on after trawling through multiple Chocolate Guinness Cake recipes. I balked slightly at the amount of sugar and butter required for the recipes, not including any glaze or topping.

One problem during my recipe search was that I had no Guinness. However…

Preheat the oven to 180°C/ 160°C fan assisted and lightly grease a bundt pan with butter and set aside.

Mix together the dry ingredients in a small bowl and set aside.

Melt down the butter spread and whisk in the sugar and sweetener together and mix until dissolved. Use a spoon to remove any lumps by scraping against the side of the bowl.

Whisk in the yoghurt, egg and vanilla extract until well combined and then whisk in the cider until well mixed.

Sift in 1/3 of the dry ingredients and fold until just combined. Repeat twice more until the dry ingredients are just combined and then scrape into the pan.

Bake for 35-40 minutes until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out with only few crumbs and the top of the cake springs back when lightly pressed

Remove from the oven and allow to cool in the pan for 5 minutes before turning out onto a cooling rack with a plate underneath the cake.

Make the ganache by melting the chocolate with 1 tsp of oil in a microwave safe bowl in 30 second intervals until almost melted. Remove and stir until fully melted.

Whisk in the cider and sift in the cocoa powder and whisk until smooth. Whisk in the sweetener and salt until smooth.

Allow the cake to cool until warm but not steaming hot and then spoon the ganache over the top of the cake. Allow it to drip over and try to completely cover the top and sides of the cake.

You can allow the ganache and cake to cool slightly by chilling in the fridge and then spread the rest of the ganache on the cake and allow to cool completely before slicing into 10 slices and serving.

Store leftovers covered in the fridge or in an airtight container for up to 4 days.

You can omit the chocolate ganache or make it by combining cocoa powder, light butter spread, sweetener or icing sugar and some apple cider together and then spreading over the cake for a lower calorie topping.

You can also replace the cider with Guinness if you have some on hand or replace with a good Irish beer.